I'm a middle class former skunk smoker. The middle class element of that statement isn't something I've chosen or particularly want. People tell me that I'm middle class because of the way I speak and the way I'm educated. It's a weak way to define class and frankly I'm sick of it.

My dad was working class. He was ashamed of his roots and spent most of his short life working his way up the social ladder to eventually become middle class. He achieved this dubious distinction through the money gained from a lifetime of crime and drug dealing. My life with him was heavily peppered with drugs and violence. I strongly identified with the Julie Myerson story and how her son Jake was said to have behaved while still living at home, smoking skunk. And so I followed the tedious media frenzy and predictable anti-class ranting unfold with suspicion.

During the Myerson debate, journalists and the public alike were banging righteous drums, defining a true addict from a whining, middle class addict. What it said to me was that if you have money, a roof over your head and an education you've got it easy and have no right to complain about your pain. What defines me as an addict is not what I use but how I use it. I robbed for skunk and couldn't function without it. It was reported that Jake Myerson smoked "a little spliff for a few months", got paranoid and the family promptly fell apart in a wave of middle class angst.

No one knows what unfolded behind the doors of the Myersons' home save the Myersons. One of the few statements that both Julie and her son don't dispute in their entrenched, very public feud is that he smoked skunk for almost three years. When he was finally thrown out of the family home he threatened to stab his parents in the heart with a knife. Does this qualify him as a proper addict who needs a hard boundary or just another middle class rich kid needing a slap on the wrist?

The responses to the online debate in SocietyGuardian's Joe Public blog in the main supported the idea that if you are middle class you should enjoy your privilege, shut up and get on with it. These visible online responses were balanced by invisible middle class families emailing the Guardian direct, concurring with the Myersons' experience of the nightmare of having a child addicted to skunk. It seems their desire for anonymity was based on their fear of public condemnation for having a middle class drug problem. I don't blame them. I'm choosing to support these anonymous voices.

I heard it said that our parents, "wound us in exactly the right place". My parents did. After starting on weed, I graduated to smack, crack and acid but eventually went back to my drug of choice, sensomelia, the 80s version of skunk. As a result of smoking this powerful, psychologically addictive drug for over two years I ended up violent, psychotic and arrived at the edge of suicide. When I finally chose to stop the drugs, stop being a victim to the wreckage of my childhood, turn it round and make something of my life, everything changed. I've seen literally hundreds of people from all classes, all backgrounds, all levels of learning and ability transform their lives in the same way.

If class is being used to define a true addict then this is what I've seen in my 20 years of working with addiction: with a working class addict what you see is often what you get; anger, sadness, frighteningly raw and up front. With your average middle class addict it is often much more hidden. This is usually based on an education in the ways to hide, repress or deny problems, especially addiction.

Jonathon Myerson's blistering response in G2 to this witch hunt speaks, for me, to the real, urgent issue in this debate: the epidemic of skunk smoking among teenagers and the damage it's doing countrywide right across the class divide. There is no definitive answer to this problem; we need to see the grey area in between our knee-jerk, fear-based responses and put our pitchforks down. I believe the Myersons love their son deeply and they did what they believed was best for him. Julie Myerson consulted Jake before publishing her book and he approved it. Jake Myerson has allegedly made plenty of money from this debate, something I would've done.

Julie Myerson put down one of the toughest boundaries of her life. She told her son to leave after years of ever increasing chaos and violence in the home. She said she did this with love. She was obviously confused, torn and desperate. She's human.

Where's the difference when looking at addiction through a class lens? There is a far-reaching perception that if you're working class and skint you must have it tougher than the middle classes, therefore you're a proper junky. Addiction never had any interest in class; never will have. It will wipe out whoever's up for the fight regardless of class, age, race, creed, sexual identity, religion or lack of religion. We have a duty as a community to come together, put lazy class divisions aside, lay tough boundaries down when needed and when our loved ones finally decide their addiction has beaten them and they are ready to ask for the help, we must be there for them.

•Caspar Walsh's memoir Criminal is out now in paperback published by Headline